Links to NUFF Participants:
Marit Anne Hauan (Program Director)
Supported by NNF (Nordic Network of Folkloristics) and by NOS-H (Joint Committee of the Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities), the NUFF network was established in the spring of 1998. Marit Anne Hauan of the University of Tromsø serves as the network's Programme Coordinator. NUFF consists of a group of folklorists and ethnologists from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, all junior researchers studying child or youth culture. The first meeting of all ten participants was held in Bergen in October 1998. The second meeting was held in June 1999, also in Bergen.
The NUFF participants work on sub-projects based on a common platform as well as on their own individual ongoing projects. These sub-projects will lead to an anthology published in English. We hope to reach a broad and interdisciplinary audience. NUFF also plans to sponsor an international seminar on children and youth culture at the Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik in late May of year 2000. Information will be given at a later stage.
The title of the NUFF project is "Forced to free choice. Nine folkloristic studies of children and youth". The networks main aim is to develop a nuanced approach to children and youth. The divisions between these fields are questioned. We try to study young people as reflexive beings, conscious of themselves and the expectations they must face. Our project is built on the notion of modernity as both a characteristic of a historical period and a common understanding of the present as a phase where reflexivity is prominent. The same ambivalence is seen in the naturalistic paradigm that has dominated the research on children and youth. The psychological approach focusing on naturalistic development is not limited to the academic discourse. This is the predominant approach within the pedagogical institutions, among parents and relatives and last but not least, among youth themselves. In other words, there is a correspondence between the research about youth and the way children and youth are socially and culturally constructed. With this in mind, the participants in the network want to develop their approaches through empirical studies of narratives and popular imagination, both oral, written and visual, aiming to see these cultural expressions as reflections over identity.